Its 4:00 in eve here at ahmedabad, sunday, pretty hot climet. just finished up watching the muvie spellbound and I can no longer wait to write the review. as all three of my favsv are togather in the movie.
SPELLBOUND(1945).Directed by sir Alfred Hitchcock,
Casting: Gregory Pack and Ingrid Bergman.
Nominated for 6 academy awards and won the oscar for the best original score.
being a great fan of hitchcock and psycho thrillers, I hardly miss any opportunity to see such movies and believe me. I m stunned after watching this. The movie spellbound is inspired from the novel "Dr. Edward’s house" by Hilary saint george saunders(1927)
coming to the plot.
Dr. Constance Petersen(Ingrid Bergman) is a psychoanalyst at a mental hospital in Vermont. Dr. Murchison(Leo G. Carroll) who is the director of the hospital, is being forced into retirement, shortly after returning from an absence due to nervous exhaustion. His replacement is the much younger Dr. Anthony Edwardes(Gregory Peck).
As Dr. Peterson comes into contact with Dr. Edwards(by the time both falls in love with each other), she finds something strange in him. it is a kind of fobia and frightenness towards some objects and Dr. peterson smells some doubts reg the persona of Dr. Edwards.
at one place, Dr. Peterson proves that this man(Gregory Pack) is an imposter and not the real Dr. Edwardes. He confides to her that he killed Dr. Edwardes and took his place. He suffers from massive amnesia and does not know who he is. Dr. Petersen believes that he is innocent and suffering from a guilt complex. soon the matter spreads to the city that Dr. Edwards is missing and murdered.
being a lover, Dr. Peterson is sure that Dr. Edwards is not a murderer but as he is suffering from amnesia, she has to anyhow make him remember all the incidences which happened to his life earlier related to Dr. Edwards and prove his innocence.
For doing so, she takes help of Dr. Brulov(Michael Chekhov), who had been Dr. Petersen’s teacher and mentor.
with great efforts and experiments, Gragory Pack( now John Brown) regains his memories aupto a certain extend and the picture becomes clear.
it seems that here is the happy ending. but friends, this is alfred hitchcock.
as it was about to prove that John Brown is innocent, it is been found that Dr. Edwards had been shot with a bullet on his back.
so now. who is the real murderer?
with full of my efforts I m stoping my fingers to type the secret unvield. just watch the movie and u ll get the truth.
Best to watch: there are some very good scenes in terms of directions and cinematography which I really need to mention.
1) the Doors-into-the-doors kissing scene of Gragory Pack and Ingrid Bergman.
2) the Dream sequence which is full of psychoanalytic symbols—eyes, curtains, scissors, playing cards(some of them blank), a man with no face, a man falling off a building, a man hiding behind a chimney dropping a wheel and wings. an excellent example of a perfect psycho thriller.
3) Clue of snow from where Dr. Peterson gets the reason of frightning of Dr. Edwards with the white things.
so, overall excellent performences by Gregory Pack and specially hitchcock’s favourite Ingrid Bergman( she is one of my most fav. actorsses), superb direction and screenplay & excellent background score.
just go 4 it.